


comfort

by borrowedlimbs



Category: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Series - Alvin Schwartz
Genre: Angst, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Sadism, Self-Harm, Smoking, Underage Masturbation, Underage Smoking, beginning of a bad relationship, tommy Milner is a rat, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21678307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borrowedlimbs/pseuds/borrowedlimbs
Summary: auggie needs to talk about his issues and chooses to find comfort in his long time bully.
Relationships: Tommy Milner/Auggie Hilderbrandt
Kudos: 19





	comfort

Thomas “Tommy” Milner had never been a good or calm man. After the incident with Harold and everything with the Sarah Bellows story, Tommy only found himself spiraling further down. It wasn’t like there was anyone Tommy could reach out to or wanted to reach out for. It wasn’t something he wanted to talk about anymore despite everyone always bringing it up to him.

August “Auggie” Hilderbrandt was too different from Tommy. After the incident, he couldn’t stop reaching out to people for help. He called Stella and Chuck almost every night when he woke up screaming, still feeling her hands wrapped around his legs and pulling. Still feeling trapped in that void, drenched in sweat. Sometimes, his friends didn’t answer and he’d start scratching just to distract himself from his thoughts.

Tommy would scratch because he still felt the straw. He still felt so fucking itchy. He would scratch until his skin bled just so that he could calm down but he never stopped feeling so itchy.

When they’d brought Tommy back, Tommy’s immediate hostility had turned everyone away. He was so accusatory and blamed the group immediately, pointing his fingers that the little sick fucks had done something disgusting to him. He’d only really calmed down when, well, Auggie spoke. Auggie brought up the void and Tommy looked at him with terror as he remembered the dark place where he’d just kept sinking and sinking away. 

That’s why Auggie had decided to go visit. He knew his friends were getting tired of his own terror and he’d remembered the fear that he saw in Tommy’s eyes. He knew that he hadn’t seen Tommy out much anymore and his car was sitting sadly alone. Auggie gently stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the corn field that just looked so gloomy. He felt his gaze drop and turn back towards the door.

He lifted his fist up to the door and then knocked. A woman answered and her gaze lowered at the boy. He was nervous as he softly whispered, “Is Tommy Milner home, ma’am? I’m August Hilderbrandt, I helped him with his math before.” This was true in a way, because Auggie had done Tommy’s algebra homework for most of the school year. Not that he wanted to, Tommy had simply forced him to. 

“Oh,” The woman let out a scratchy sigh and then turned to look inside before returning her gaze to August, “Alright but he might not want to see you. He hasn’t been himself since he’s come back.” Her brows furrowed upsettingly and then she moved out of the way to allow August in the home.

Auggie took a couple steps in and thanked Mrs. Milner before asking her where Tommy’s room was. She gave him directions and then made sure to add on the end, “Make sure to knock, he gets real upset when you don’t.”

Auggie nodded and headed towards Tommy’s room, each step terrifying him more than the last. He wondered how pissed off Tommy would be when he’d get in there but had to gulp down his fear and again lifted his fist to the door. He softly knocked and heard a loud groan.

“Ma, I’m not hungry,” Tommy’s voice was low and pained. Auggie remembered how scratchy and hoarse he’d sounded when they’d, no when _Stella,_ had saved him. A lot of his voice had clearly come back to him.

“T-Tommy,” He could immediately hear movement now, “It’s August, I uh did your math homework and I’m friends with Stella and um..” He was terrified of what else to add and the door quickly swung open.

Tommy looked like shit, there was no other word for it. He wasn't wearing a top and wore dirty blue shorts but he was covered in scratch marks. His fingers had been bitten down and the skin around as well, just to see the blood. Just to remind him there wasn’t straw under it all. So many scars covering that body, and Auggie noticed they were mainly on his chest.

“What are you doing here, shitbird?” Tommy growled, keeping his voice low. Honestly, Auggie was still intimidated despite having endured so much worse than Tommy could most likely dish out. “Come to look at me when I’m down? I can still fuck you up.”

“No, no, I didn’t!” Auggie immediately denied and he felt himself getting smaller under Tommy’s glare, “I came to check on you. I-I know that no one wants to listen to me keep talking about what happened and I don’t know if you’ve been able to talk to anyone about it so I thought that since—”

“Stop talking,” Tommy interrupted and immediately Auggie shut himself up. After the incident, he’d started rambling bad, he couldn’t shut up. It’s almost funny, because he wasn’t always the biggest talker and his friend Chuck couldn’t shut his trap. Now, Chuck was a lot quieter than normal and Auggie couldn’t stop talking. “Jesus, fuck, fine. Get in.” He went to his bed and sat, Auggie taking a moment before following him in and then closing the door. 

Tommy sat up and found a shirt on the ground. He picked it up and slipped it on with a quiet sigh. He turned to look at Auggie and pointed at his bed, “Sit down, you’re making me nervous.” Auggie quickly nodded and sat down, shaking a little under Tommy’s heated gaze. He honestly hadn’t planned any of this out after this point. He took notice of Tommy’s sudden itching as well and how rough he was getting with it. 

“So how have you been?” Auggie whispered, knowing the question was shit but nothing else was coming back to him. He gently wrapped himself up in his own arms and looked at his feet.

Tommy glared him up and down, trying to find any sense of malice in the little brat. But, he saw none. He just saw a fidgety and nervous boy, someone who was so very weak. He wondered at the idea of throwing him out and seeing him get so upset he might even cry. Normally he would have smiled at the sadistic act, but a voice in the back of his head seemed to whisper, _“Not good enough.”_

“Not well, but you should know that, right? Since you little fucks sent me to wherever the hell that was,” Finally Tommy found his old attitude hiding, and he immediately was sent to hostility. He watched Auggie start to shake again.

“Y-Y-You know we didn’t! Chuck and I were there too.,” Auggie quietly argued and made quick eye contact with those cold eyes, “Anyway it doesn’t make sense that we would do that.”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Because why would we bring you back out if we did?” Auggie said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Also, how could we have done any of that? What happened to you, me, it was like the shit in those horror movies.” It was always rare for Auggie to cuss so he even tensed at his words. “Why would I be here if we did that to you?”

Tommy frowned at Auggie’s reasoning. He hated to say it, but Auggie was right. Tommy had been nothing but a jerk to the three, four if you included Ramon and maybe five if you included Chuck’s sister, and there would be no reason for August to be checking in on him if they’d done this as some sick joke. He shut his trap and then reached into his drawer. He pulled out cigarettes, “Fine, fine, you might be right. That doesn’t change much though, and when I get back on my feet I swear I’m going to…” Tommy sighed and placed the cigarette in his mouth, not finishing his sentence.

Auggie frowned but nodded, watching Tommy with the cigarette. He noticed that when Tommy lit his match, he stared at it for too long. He blew out the tiny flame after applying it to the cigarette and then laid back.

August bit the inside of his cheek before finally speaking again, “I read your story.”

Tommy tensed at the statement. Stella had come around once to talk to his mom about how he was doing and she had read the story to his mother. He had overheard and the description in it was gruesome. It made him sick to his stomach and the whole time she read, he scratched and scratched.

“I’m sorry,” Auggie sighed, “maybe it was wrong to mention that.”

“Ya think?” Tommy pulled the cigarette from his lips and let out a shaky puff, “Nothing’s worse than the itch though. Doesn’t matter what I wear or do, I feel that itch all over me. I scratched all over until my skin rubs red and still nothing. Plus sometimes I just need to make sure its not straw in there…” Tommy found himself rambling but he couldn’t stop. He felt like he’d slowly entered into his own bubble and couldn’t stop talking. There was so much, _too_ much going on in his head. His thoughts had nowhere to go and they slipped out of his mouth.

Auggie was surprised to hear that but he knew he’d seen the scratches and marks when he’d entered. He didn’t want to make comments, fearful Tommy would turn to hostility again and then he’d have no more chances to talk to someone else about what happened to them. 

Tommy let his eyes flicker over to Auggie’s shocked expression and glared at it. He realized that he had been talking out loud and that pissed him off. Igniting a nasty flame in his head. He blew another plume of smoke, but this time in Auggie’s face. “Stop staring at me, freak.” August deflated and looked at the ground.

Tommy looked again at his cig and then sighed, “I think I should’ve lit that dumb shit scarecrow on fire.” The idea had spurred other delusions in his head. For example, if he brought his matches to his skin, would he know then he wasn’t full of straw? He stuck it back in his mouth.

“Can I try it?” Auggie asked nervously and Tommy intensified their eye contact.

“Try, what? Smoking? What are you 12?” The question was ridiculous, for Tommy had started smoking on his 12th birthday.

“15,” Auggie corrected, “and I’ve gone through more stuff than most other 15 year olds have, so can I try?”

Tommy pretended to really think about it, but in reality had already decided yes in his head. Honestly he thought it’d be entertaining to see the kid fail to inhale the drug. So he removed his cig and passed it to Auggie. “Try it.”

“I-I can’t have a new one?”

“Hell no,” Tommy glared at Auggie's rejection of his offer, “I’m offering this to you, if you don’t want it I’ll finish it off.” Auggie frowned a bit but snatched the cigarette from Tommy’s hand, placing it in his own mouth. He attempted to smoke it, Tommy’s intrigue peeking.

Auggie pulled it out as a large cloud of smoke followed suit. His lungs and throat burned already and he handed it to Tommy. “Painful,” Auggie commented before he started a coughing fit. Tommy’s hand slid to Auggie’s back and pat it a couple times. 

“Not the worst pain,” Tommy mumbled, almost apathetically. He sighed and reached over and grabbed his water cup to give over to Auggie. Normally, Auggie would’ve argued that it was gross, but he didn’t have a lot of want to fight off some water. Auggie took the water and quickly chugged the rest of it down, finally catching his breath. Tommy took the cup and set it over to the other side.

While he did, Auggie spoke up, “You know you're not alone right?” He slowly rolled up his sleeves to reveal the scratches. He even showed his ankles up to his lower calf that were wrapped in poor quality bandages. Tommy looked at them and his mind quickly disturbed. 

“Can I see?” Tommy asked, waving towards Auggie’s bandaged legs. Auggie was confused at first but slowly went down to unravel the bandages; he revealed deep claw marks along with other scratches around them.

Tommy felt his heart pick up and he couldn’t tell you why. His mind blurred with the idea of seeing those wounds ooze. He wanted to grab at them and pick away the scabs. He was practically salivating at the sadistic idea. Tommy had always been a bit of a sadist, but most of the times he knew when to stop. Maybe being trapped in that void had screwed with his head more than he’d suspected, because now all he wanted to do was reach out and scratch up Auggie’s skin. He could see in the corner of his eye his bat and wondered what would happen if he—“Tommy?”

Auggie’s soft voice erupted him from his daydreams. Tommy shook his head and relaxed his fingers, “Those are deep. Is that why you were limping?” He tried to keep his voice calm but his heart was still thumping in his ear. He shivered at the ideas playing out in his head.

Auggie had forgotten about his limp so he never truly acknowledged it, but hearing someone else mention it made him upset. He’d been hoping it would somehow get better and yet Tommy jabbing at it made his wound almost hurt a little more. He winced.

“So, those scratches, you did them yourself?” Tommy’s voice was low as he let his eyes flicker from the wounds to Auggie’s face, like a boy trying not to get caught looking at some girl’s boobs. Auggie could tell by the slight flush in Tommy’s face that something was up but he just nodded to answer the question. Tommy nodded and looked up at his ceiling, trying to shake off his ideas.

“So, _Auggie_ , what did you want from this?” Tommy’s question got Auggie nervous. Auggie bit the inside of his cheek as he actually considered the question. What had he wanted to come from this conversation? Did he honestly think he’d make a friend out of Tommy? If not, then why was he here? Had he just wanted someone to vent to and that was all?

“I-I don’t really know?” Auggie answered honestly but felt himself start to shake again. He’d never felt so helpless, except when he was in the void, and it made him start to fidget again. He tapped the tips of his fingers together once he heard Tommy click his tongue.

“What if I wanted something from this?” Tommy’s voice grew more on the edge and his heart was screaming into his ear. Watching Auggie didn’t remind him of the cats he used to slaughter with his buddies or the girls he’d be way too rough with, Auggie was this newfound spectacle and Tommy wanted to crush it. He’d never felt such an intense urge to hurt something. “What if I let you come around here whenever you need to talk about whatever you’re feeling,” This part got bile filling his throat, “and in return, I get to scratch you up.”

Auggie’s eyes went wide and pulled completely into himself. The deal seemed simple and yet the idea of getting scratched up by someone else (especially that someone else being Tommy Milner) had him nervous. However, he realized it wouldn’t be much different from when he scratched himself up, maybe a little scary at first but other than that, the same. “I,” Auggie swallowed down his fear.

“I’m getting tired of waiting,” Tommy growled lowly.

Auggie stuck his hand out, “I accept.” He looked at Tommy nervously and Tommy looked at his hand. He slowly took it in his own and shook it. Auggie didn’t see the darkness wrapping around Tommy. Auggie knew that honestly this was a stupid and brash decision that seemed more like something Chuck would do then him but the idea of having someone who would listen to him seemed easy. Seemed like a small price to pay for having to expose himself in other ways. 

Tommy could tell he was practically shaking and jumping for joy. Auggie couldn’t tell that Tommy’s excitement was vibrating off of him. “Perfect,” Tommy lowered his predatory glare and then got up. He rummaged through his stuff in his closet and Auggie watched him closely, trying to make out what he was grabbing. 

Finally, Tommy pulled out a box and then walked over to Auggie, setting the box at his side. He flicked it open and then pulled out a bracelet. He handed it to Auggie and looked down at him, “There, a way to sign off this deal.” Auggie slowly took it and thanked him quietly, clicking it on his wrists. Tommy knew that he couldn’t scare Auggie away now, despite his want to take his bat and ruin those legs, he needed to be careful. “You should leave now,” Tommy grunted and Auggie pouted slightly, “I need my alone time since you took that away.”

And there he was, back to his mean comments. Still, Auggie didn’t mind them so much right now and they practically bounced off his head. He slowly lifted himself from the bed and thanked Tommy again. Tommy rolled his eyes and then helped push Auggie out the door, slamming it shut when Auggie was outside. Auggie jumped at the sudden noise but just forced himself to keep walking, making sure to say goodbye to Mrs. Milner on the way out.

Back in Tommy’s room, he slowly laid against his bed and dropped down his jeans. In his mind swirled images of the scabs and the cut, and most importantly, Auggie’s face. He imagined it with so many bruises and that sent a rise to his already angry cock. He slipped his hand down, wrapped to around, and pumped it; thinking only of the pain he would inflict.

**Author's Note:**

> so this relationship is hella toxic, oof. hope y’all enjoyed this tho and sorry the ending is hella rushed


End file.
